


Five fairy tales from the Ardennes Forest

by newredshoes



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Bastogne, Fairy Tales, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-12
Updated: 2009-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-13 13:42:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/138003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newredshoes/pseuds/newredshoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bastogne is not real.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five fairy tales from the Ardennes Forest

**Glass slippers.**

Frank wakes up to Alley cursing in the next foxhole over. “Shit,” he mutters, over and over again. “Shit shit shit shit.” Frank struggles against the stiffness in his body and glances over at Luz, who shrugs.

“He’s been doing that for the past half hour.”

Frank adjusts his hold on his rifle. “Hey, Moe,” he calls out. “You gonna narrate or you gonna go already?”

The foxhole goes quiet for a moment. “It’s my feet,” says Alley. “I can’t move them.”

Luz peeks up over the edge. “You take your boots off?”

“Yeah,” Alley huffs.

“Shit,” sighs Frank. “Don’t move, Jimmy, I’m comin’ over.” He tosses his gun up on the ground and hefts himself after it, shimmying over dirt as soft as concrete until he tips down into Alley’s foxhole. Alley scoots back, and Frank has a pretty good view of Alley’s feet in the moonlight. “Jesus, you ain’t supposed to let ‘em turn colors.”

Alley clears his throat, or maybe that’s a laugh. “What I wouldn’t give for a pair of jump gloves, you know?”

“No kiddin’, right?”

Alley reaches out for his toes again, his hand swathed in ragged scraps. “Hey, put those back,” Frank snaps, swatting Alley’s hand. “You can’t take care of this.”

“I’m not—” He swallows. “I’m not moving off the line for trench foot.”

“Nobody’s sending you off the line, doofus. You think there’s someplace to go or somethin’? Put your hands away.” Frank hefts up Alley’s leg and tucks the foot in under his arm. He’s freezing, but this is like pressing a damn icebox to his skin.

“What’re you—?”

“Bend your knee,” orders Frank, and takes Alley’s other foot between his hands and starts rubbing. “I better get a goddamn citation for this,” he adds in the unsure silence after. Alley doesn’t say anything, but he is smiling a little.

“Perco, did he shit yet?”

Frank bows his head. “Nah, Pee Wee, but I’ll keep you posted.”

 

 **Blow your house down.**

Skinny shakes his head. “Tarps don’t do squat where we are. We can’t get ‘em weighted down right. They wind up flapping, make more noise than they’re worth.”

“That mean you’re not using yours?” More asks. “I been looking for another; ours got shredded in that last shelling.”

“No, Hoobler got it. Traded me for a kraut blanket.”

Malarkey swears. “How’s he get hold of that stuff anyway?”

Muck’s knees knock together. “You really want to know? I’m not sure I do.”

More huddles deeper into his greatcoat. “So what’re you usin’ now for cover?”

“Tree branches for now.” Skinny’s cracked lips split a little. “Smells like Christmas every day.”

Muck snorts. “Wish we were at the North Pole. Bet it’s warmer there.”

Skinny shakes his head. “Screw the North Pole, I wish we were in Berlin. Weren’t we supposed to be there by now?”

Malarkey looks over at More. “Say, what’re you using over your foxhole?”

He shrugs. “We’ve still got the tarp, but there’s some fellas down the line using dead krauts. Says they work like a dream.”

 _“Damn,”_ says Muck. Then: “Guess they’ve got to be good for something. God knows there’s enough of ‘em.”

Skinny isn’t sorry when they laugh, and he does too.

 

 **Trip-trap, trip-trap, trip-trap.**

Christenson presses his lips together. “You sure you know where we’re going?”

“‘Course I do,” Penkala scoffs. “It’s just over the stream near Fox Company. Would I make these things up?”

“I expect new boots at the end of this,” Garcia grouses. “We’ve been walking long enough.”

“You’ll thank me when we find the supply DZ. I saw it go down over there. We just gotta find where it landed.”

The snow crunches beneath their boots, and Christenson wills himself to fill in the blank sheet underfoot. The trees veer off toward too many vanishing points, planted so evenly the grid becomes meaningless.

“You’re sure we’re still on our side of the line?” says Garcia, craning his neck at the dark verticals of the pines.

Penk swallows, but tries not to show it. “You see any Germans yet?”

Christenson sighs. “You don’t see them first, that’s the whole idea.”

“We should go back. If they were going to find the crates, they’d have sent somebody.”

“We’re showing initiative, Tony. It’s—”

Something cracks up ahead. Christenson hisses and crouches, gun ready. The three of them wait, huddled and tense. “Garcia?” a voice drawls, and they breathe again.

Bull steps out from behind a tree, cold stogie jammed in the corner of his mouth. His eyes run over each of them, slow, implacable. Christenson feels embarrassed to be along, a Toccoa man who should know better. “The hell you boys doin’ out here?”

Penk tilts his helmet back. “Thought we could pick up one of those supply crates that got missed over here. Do the company some good, you know?”

Bull takes the cigar from between his teeth. “Ain’t no supplies left,” he says. “Fox boys got ‘em all.”

“Really?” Penkala shakes his head, then offers the three of them a little shrug. He doesn’t wilt. “Well, it was a nice walk, wasn’t it?”

 

 **Sheherazade.**

“Now it’s one thing to try and get a regular-sized catfish out on a little piddly pole like I had,” Smokey says, and Shifty feels warmer just listening to his lively Mississippi lilt. “That’s hard enough. Those boys, they know how to fight now. But this, this was a real monster. You ever seen a real big cow? I’m not talking your regular fat milk cow, I mean a heifer that could just bump you once and bowl you right over. I could have used one of those for bait, this catfish was so big. You got snappers up where you’re from?”

Shifty nods. “Take your foot right off if you step on one.”

Smokey mirrors the nod, furthering it. “Well, then you know how hard it is to pull those suckers up from the mud. Shifty, I am telling you now, that catfish was like twenty of them dug down deep. That boy was mad and he was not budging. I had him on my line, I had to tie myself to a tree to make sure he wouldn’t pull me in, and he still damn near uprooted that tree. I wasn’t going to let him get away from me, no sir, not after all we’d been through, so I—”

The shots come from damn near on top of them. Smokey hits the floor of the foxhole, cursing and fumbling for the ammo for his machine gun. Shifty ducks behind one of the trees, and takes a few moments to track the sound of the bullets. There’s a crook in the pine, just about fit for sighting. It’s just one fella, one lonely German not a hundred yards from the line. Shifty settles into focus and squeezes the trigger once.

Smokey peers out into the clearing again, clutching his helmet. Shifty drops, loose-limbed and easy, back into the hole.

“You tied yourself to the tree,” he prompts, ready for the rest.

 

 **Little red.**

“Hey.” Someone is thumping him on the shoulder. “Hey, Eugene, wake up.”

Gene comes out of sleep too fast, not sure he’s fully passed into the real world again. “Jesus, Doc, you always this dopey? Come on, you’re missin’ rounds.” The edges of things are too sharp, the light nothing but incisions on the air. Heffron crouches closer, frowning. His nose and cheeks are red enough to match his hair. “Hey, you with me?”

He takes a breath, sucks in too much frigid air and regrets it. “Anybody hurt?” he rasps. Heffron steadies himself on his feet.

“Nah, no worse than usual.” His eyes flick over Gene’s face. Gene can only imagine what he looks like: thin and lean and unshaven, two dark eyes that are done with seeing sights. Heffron hops into the foxhole and settles down next to him, perched on his heels like Gene waits against the trees. “I got somethin’ for you.” He busies himself with his musette bag; Gene doesn’t even look until he turns back around, two bandages and a syrette in one hand. “Spina found these, said you’d been lookin’ for extras.”

For a moment, for a thin half-second, Gene thinks they shouldn’t have done that, shouldn’t have sent him that. Having just a few makes a person hungry for more, makes him think he can help more with just that one extra piece. When there’s nothing, you know where you stand and what you can do.

God forgive him for such thoughts. He takes what Heffron offers him. “Thank you,” he says, and pushes himself onto two feet.

“Eh, no sweat.” Babe chuckles. “No kiddin’ on that, right?”

Gene looks at him, just looks at him, but the smile stays put. They both push themselves out of the foxhole, and set off to walk through the woods.


End file.
